The DC Omniverse – Continuity Changes In 2021

[kingaliencracker]

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-c...-future-state/

What is the DC Omniverse? Yesterday we looked at how the recent Death Metal: Rise Of The New God was setting up what may be coming for the DC Universe in March 2021, after the two-month Future State initiative.

Well, the rumours are hotting up. What remains of the New 52, after DC Rebirth, Death Metal and Future State, is being done away with in favour of an Omniverse model. In which characters and comic books are no longer tied to a strict continuity but will play faster and looser with history.

This is a direct rejection of former DC publisher Dan DiDio's plans for a new DC Timeline that had began to be set up earlier in the year. Shown off on a New York Comic-Con stage, and filleted by Bleeding Cool, it was intended to be published in this year's DC Comics Free Comic Book Day title. But after publisher Dan DiDio was fired, every single copy was pulped – not one copy escaped to the aftermarket, despite four-figure sums being offered by enthusiastic collectors to anyone who might have one on the side. If any departing DC editors have a stack of them in their office drawer, they could pay for their retirement.

I also understand that DC is currently working on putting together a new event comic to birth this new reality, to be published in March or April, for this new unrestrained storytelling approach. Basically, DC Rebirth written by people other than Geoff Johns, a framing story for all the books spinning out of it into 2021, couched in a new kind of Omniversal continuity to persuade people that everything still matters.

Because some disquiet I have heard is that Dan DiDio's expressed status of the new DC Universe that "everything happened, everything matters" may become an "everything happened, nothing matters". For some, continuity is a major aspect of superhero comic books, a single, extended history, with many books having the question asked of them, "does it count". Half of the questions asked of Doomsday Clock and The Three Jokers, titles set up by the heavy-continuity DC Rebirth, were about whether they were in-canon, whether they counted, whether they mattered, the answer being "not since Geoff Johns left DC Comics as CCO."

But what the DC Omniverse will mean is greater creative freedom, less interference by editors (or publishers), and no one saying "you can't use that character, they died in City of Bane/got lost in a Dark Dimension/went evil and currently approaching Gotham, slowly, with all her plants."

And lots of new variants of characters to license as toys, or to be turned into new direct-to-TV animations. The Elseworlds stories have done very well for Warners, this might make every DC comic book an Elseworld title. Once upon a time, this was called Hypertime, but DC Comics never really committed to it. Now, it seems, they are. Hopefully, that increased creative freedom will make up for the lower page rates starting to come in…

Look for more DC Omniverse in Death Metal #7.

[cranger]

I will wait and see just how close to reality this take is. This take sounds a lot like DC You but I doubt that and I think it is more just a way of rebranding the publishing to have everything on an equal level. That is, we already have what the omniverse is going to be, whether it is animation, YA novels, or the kids picture books I read my children when they were younger.

[Morgoth]

After this news, that Super Sons teaser from Jimenez no longer seems so dubious.
In general, I want to see how this concept works in general. Although I would not say that the current state of continuity was very different from what they plan to do next year.

[lemonpeace]

just gonna quote myself from the Future State thread:

wait, the new regime is moving away from the old guard's model of continuity? who'd've thought! in other news, water = wet. maybe I'm just a bit tired and jaded with BleedingCool articles riling up the fanbase everytime they drop at this point but this one just seems like it was a common sense next step. DC has been jumbling up continuity for the last however many years, so it seemed obvious (to me at least) that under new management they would try to put their foot down on continuity sooner rather than later in some way or another. regardless, if this turns out to be true, I wouldn't mind them using the Omniverse to simplify continuity and allow for fewer to no more need to constantly derail the universe to they can "fix it" again.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

However much I love the shared universe aspect of DC and most especially its legacy, the whole thing has been such a headache since the New 52 (and before) that, honestly, an "everything happened, everything matters" approach is probably the way to go at this point. Especially because, for DC, most of their very best stuff exists out of continuity or, like Starman, Hitman, JLI and Morrison's JLA, takes what's happening in continuity and doing its own thing with it.

There should be a continuity between books in the same line, I guess, but beyond that let them run wild, I say. Though I still think the best way to do it would be to have, say, ten in-continuity books (maybe bumper-size anthologies, divided into "families") that build on whatever has been established since Crisis on Infinite Earths (Lois and Clark married, Wally as Flash, Batman had a bunch of Robins) and have the rest of the line be pop-up imprints like Wonder Comics, Young Animal, even DCeased and standalone miniseries that can take place anywhere in DC's 80+ year history.

The scariest thing about that quote, though, is the lower page rates. If DC wants to remain vital as a publishing line, they need to attract top-drawer talent, which won't happen if they don't offer competitive page rates.

[Artemisfanboy]

I'm going to repost what I said in the timeline thread.
I have to seriously doubt this. I can't see going with no continuity at all approach being a good long term workable thing at all. Has disaster written all over it. I imagine it would end up tanking sales of most books across the line and they have to understand this. A lot of the fandom is invested in the idea of following these characters and their stories in a soap opera like format and I suspect this helps keep things afloat somewhat. Get rid of that entirely and you're now relying on the creative teams and the stories they're pitching to stand on their own merits and given the how a lot of books are stuck treading water, I'm not sure they can. And if they do get good teams and runs going it might be hard for those to gain traction if people aren't paying attention to the books in the first place to spread good word of mouth. And I doubt they'd actually be interested in it. As I pointed out DCYou's "story over continuity" really didn't mean anything.

At the very least you'd need a series universe writing bible, or perhaps bibles giving the scope of what we're talking about to keep everything remotely on model to a status quo and keep things somewhat consistent.

And if they want to publish more out of continuity stuff with greater focus on creator vision, why not just publish it? Isn't this what the Digital First stuff, the OGNs, and Black Label stuff effectively is?

I mean I've been enjoying Agent of Peace and some other entries in the Digital First line recently, but I don't want that to become the style for everything they publish. And occasionally they get what I consider a core piece of lore wrong and that peeves me.(An example would be AoP #14 having Artemis as just another Themysciran Amazon around when Diana was a child when I consider her being Bana-Mighdall to major part of her character. I'm more easily able to overlook this because it's out of mainline continuity, but I wouldn't want see her being Bana being dropped from the mainline version of the character.) Honestly I think having a general universe series bible could also help the free from main continuity projects as well.

I also think the timeline was suppose to be published across the Generations issues instead of all in #0.

After this news, that Super Sons teaser from Jimenez no longer seems so dubious.
In general, I want to see how this concept works in general. Although I would not say that the current state of continuity was very different from what they plan to do next year.

I'm not sure why it would seem dubious. There's a lot of people unhappy with the age-up and particularly Jon being tortured for seven years by the by the Crime Syndicate. And Bendis has probably not been bringing in the sales they expected. I'd like to believe they'd undo it in order to try to get readers unhappy with this back.

I'll still get any super-sons series, even if it's not in continuity, just to show support for the concept and characters and try to get the age up undone in the main continuity. Just like I won't pick up anything in the main continuity Superman books or Legion while the age up and Jon being tortured for seven years is the status quo.

And needless to say I still want there to be a main continuity when the dust settles.

[seismic-2]

This "any continuity you want" approach would render the whole concept of a shared universe a total mess (suppose Superman and Lois are married in one title but not in the other?), but it would make a great deal of sense for a bunch of stand-alone graphic novels. DC probably believes their future lies in those stand-alones rather than in the monthly books, and it would be hard to claim that they're wrong in that conclusion.

[km_sus]

I'd prefer if they stop trying to reinvent the wheel every two months and double down on continuity, actually.

My primary complaint is that DC doesn't have a good enough consistent timeline. I know many readers have no idea what did or didn't happen, even regarding events that were only a year ago. Also less editorial interference? Bruh, maybe you should decide wether Power Girl is stuck in a pocket dimension or not before you let writers and artists do whatever.

Anyway, article is probably a pile of crock. I cant seriously imagine DC trying to get rid of continuity as a whole. It would blow apart the entire concept of the ongoing comic book narrative.

[Vordan]

just gonna quote myself from the Future State thread:

The thing is though, this is Didio’s model of continuity. He was the guy behind DCYou. He liked playing fast and loose with continuity. 5G was really the aberration for Didio’s usual modus operandi, given it starred legacies and supposedly had tight continuity. Now we’re just going back to how he always did things. What’s Superman’s origin? Whichever one you want.

After this news, that Super Sons teaser from Jimenez no longer seems so dubious.
In general, I want to see how this concept works in general. Although I would not say that the current state of continuity was very different from what they plan to do next year.

I don’t really get what you mean by “dubious”. Jimenez isn’t working on a new Super Sims project though, he’s on Batman for 2021. The Super Sons could be in one of DC’s anthologies, so that piece he’s making may very well be for that.

[Zero Hunter]

What this really means is going forward they are going to be doing more generic stories. Think of it as the golden age model. Something happens one issue and is forgotten the next. No real continuity so you can jump in any issue and get the same story over and over. Generic one off issues like Casper or Archie comics where every writer can do their _______ vs_______ story.

DC really is dying a slow sad death.

[Stanlos]

Sooooooooooooo while the MCU capitalizes and leans into the shared universe model, DC is going to just not give a crap. I wonder if monthlies will continue to be published. If not, will it further erode the iconic status of the Trinity?

[Morgoth]

I would still take into account that BC tend to exaggerate, and this thesis about "this might make every DC comic book an Elseworld title" can certainly be an exaggeration. I just don't believe they would do something like that. In theory, this may be convenient from a creative point of view, but in practice it can create more chaos.

I don’t really get what you mean by “dubious”. Jimenez isn’t working on a new Super Sims project though, he’s on Batman for 2021. The Super Sons could be in one of DC’s anthologies, so that piece he’s making may very well be for that.

I just thought that was for nothing, to be honest. And that art looks like something for cover anyways. My point was that with this concept, in theory, they could resume the series, while still using Teen Jon in other comics if they wanted to. This is just one of examples of how this might work for them.

What this really means is going forward they are going to be doing more generic stories.

Well, it was inevitable, moreover, the audience itself in its majority may just want this. The successes of Tynion and Taylor at least indicate this.

[Konja7]

What this really means is going forward they are going to be doing more generic stories. Think of it as the golden age model. Something happens one issue and is forgotten the next. No real continuity so you can jump in any issue and get the same story over and over. Generic one off issues like Casper or Archie comics where every writer can do their _______ vs_______ story.

DC really is dying a slow sad death.

There will likely still certain connection between stories, but it will depend on writers to use an story. They could use an old event im broad strokes, but ignore the details in tha event.

I think it would be similar to Young Justice by Bendis. He uses the old YJ story only in broad strokes, so the characters didn't get their whole story back (in fact, there were events and backgrounds that changed).

[seismic-2]

What this really means is going forward they are going to be doing more generic stories. Think of it as the golden age model. Something happens one issue and is forgotten the next. No real continuity so you can jump in any issue and get the same story over and over. Generic one off issues like Casper or Archie comics where every writer can do their _______ vs_______ story.

Yes, exactly. This "generic story" model works perfectly for stand-alone graphic novels (The Dark Knight, Killing Joke, Year One, etc.) where trying to fit into an established long-term continuity is not the point. Just produce a good stand-alone story that doesn't require its readers to know a lot of history or to worry about how or whether this story impacts anything else, and then move onto a completely different story.

DC really is dying a slow sad death.

They likely feel that they are in fact dying if they continue clinging to monthly books in a shared-continuity universe as their principal product line, and producing instead a bunch of unconnected graphic novels would allow them to make a group of new readers be their target audience for the future.

[Frontier]

Is Ben 10 coming to the DCU?